Looking back: This was CS:GO in 2020

As 2020 comes to a close, the online era of CS:GO continues. The COVID-19 pandemic has prevented international LAN events for the most part but there was still quite some exciting CS:GO action to witness. With numerous interesting swaps and enlarged rosters becoming reality, what were the most memorable moments of this weird year? 
Even the players are human

Quite often in tournaments we’ve seen mind boggling plays coming out from the veterans of Counter-Strike, yet sometimes even they have moments that show they’re human just like us. Kenny ‘KennyS’ Schrub had a moment like that earlier this year where he might have been focussing a bit on the wrong part of his screen… .

These clips are easily missed, however, if you see the things coming out from the NA scene. There it seems like every match has a crazy highlight.
Bigger rosters, bigger wins

With some players of Astralis taking a temporary step back, it became more and more apparent how much of a strain competitive CS:GO can put on the players. This has since then transitioned into 2020 having the first rosters with six or more players. The team mainly benefitting from this seems to be Vitality, with the French organisation picking up Nabil ‘Nivera’ Benrlitom and putting him to good use in some of their victories. 

This six man roster has not really caught on yet with other teams however. The costs that come with a CS:GO team are quite hefty and adding another player would mean yet another big paycheck to cover each month (and possibly even a buyout to get him on the team in the first place). Astralis themselves have had some players join and leave during the temporary absence of some of their players, yet have kept Lucas ‘Bubzkji’ Andersen as a sixth man. It seems unlikely many teams will adopt this form of bigger roster themselves, however with more success comes more money and possibly more players in the roster.

NiKo leaving FaZe

Nikola ‘NiKo’ Kovač has left FaZe Clan after a lengthy stay, joining up with his cousin in G2 Esports. Since joining the team Niko and G2 have been doing quite well, winning the first match against FURIA and beating some top teams after. The move in itself was quite shocking as NiKo had an all-star line-up around him. 

This year however they did perform well but were unable to get wins consistently or even get into the Grand Final, often ending third. After a two month talk between the organisations a deal was signed and NiKo was able to embark on a new journey. Yet with the addition of a new player some teams still try to hold on to the regular roster size of five players, meaning that Audric ‘JaCkz’ Jug has been benched early December.

Cheering all over the world

Usually there’d be a clip in here somewhere of an international LAN where we’d celebrate the incredible win of a certain team. Yet with the pandemic still going on, only some online cheers were visible on the broadcasts. 

Is the international scene dead at the moment? No not at all! Some American teams and players (both North and South American) have temporarily migrated to Europe to be able to compete against top teams and of course compete in high level tournaments. Some slightly lower ranked NA teams can’t afford the move but do sometimes have some interesting ‘home distractions’.
Million player milestone

When the pandemic reached concerning levels and multiple countries imposed lockdowns, gamers found more time to play their favourite titles and of course to hang out with their friends online. For the first time ever CS:GO reached over one million concurrent players, showing the game is far from dead with new milestones reached despite the game being eight years old in 2020.

What about highlights?

Just looking at the relatively lower clip views on the respective Twitch channels, it seems as if people are possibly missing the LAN vibe of cheering people as backing vocals for every clip. We’ve already given you some fun clips but it’s also time to show some Brazilian strength and (over)aggression. FURIA’s Andrei ‘arT’ Piovezan has really finetuned his W-holding skills and takes advantage of the open mid of Vertigo in the following clip against Team Liquid.

If you thought that was good, there is one thing you need to have seen this year and that is probably the most disgusting pistol ace ever shown on stream. It is to no surprise it comes from the prodigy himself, Mathieu ‘ZywOo’ Herbaut.

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Image Credit: Valve

 

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